England delusions go on

By Roy Collins

12:01AM BST 27 Jun 2004

The Portugese security lady who helped to protect England's multi-millionaire footballers here got it right. Asked before the tournament where the thoroughfare leading out of their training headquarters went, she prophetically declared that it was the road to nowhere.

England footballers have been driving down it longer than Sisyphus has been rolling that stone uphill, convincing themselves at every change of landscape that they are actually on the road to Damascus. Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, at the wheel, can already see a prime parking space just outside the new McDonald's (naturally, one of England's sponsors).

Even when two tyres burst, the radiator overheats and the head gasket blows, England squads are able to persuade themselves that paradise is just around the next bend, sharing the blind faith of their fans, which has already escalated beyond mockery.

Despite being thoroughly outplayed, they reacted like a heavyweight champion knocked out by an opponent with a horseshoe in his glove or a racing trainer whose top runner had been slipped a Mickey Finn just before the tapes went up.

Related Articles

Clearly, no shaving mirrors were available on the morning after the night before because no one recognised the over-hyped, under-performing stars staring back. All they could see were cheating officials, though they sensibly refrained from actually using those words, a dodgy penalty spot designed to swindle our boys, which they had practised on for days and so were aware of its treachery, and fatigue because they had enjoyed one fewer recovery day than their opponents.

Even Lady Luck got a kicking and her skirt muddied, although England did refrain from wheeling out that perennial favourite, the heat.

Believe it or not, this had already been employed to explain the lacklustre performance against the mighty Swiss, even though it was early evening when the game kicked off.

The truth was that, as courageous as their rearguard action may have been against Portugal, England were simply not good enough to win this tournament. Nor, if they cannot rid themselves of a wretchedly defensive mindset, or learn to play football that does not have an unhealthy resemblance to Wimbledon under Dave Bassett, will they ever again need to seek out the key to the trophy cabinet.

The heartbreakingly late defeat by France in the opening game should have drummed an important lesson into Eriksson and his team. Attempting to defend deeply for 90 minutes against quality teams requires more luck than a million dollar winner on the craps table in Las Vegas. Whether it is the 15th minute, the 60th or, as it turned out, the 90th and 93rd, you are going to get caught.

Yet there were England, greedily grabbing at the dice, certain again that they could defy the odds against Portugal, even though goalkeeper David James admitted: "In the second half, we just defended and defended and you can't do that against top teams. I wouldn't say that it was our fault [heaven forbid] but it was just the way the game panned out. They pressed on and on and it was inevitable that they would get a good chance."

Eriksson, who as the country's first foreign coach, was hailed as the man to graft some European refinements to our Anglo-Saxon up and at 'em game, must carry the can for the tactics, even if he is not responsible for the players' inadequacies. And inadequacy hardly comes close to defining the abysmal performances of the four midfield players against Portugal.

Eriksson had been cross-examined for months as to whether he was going to use the diamond shape or a flat midfield four for these championships. But to borrow from Basil Fawlty, it does not matter whether you use a chip shape, a Mickey Mouse shape or a poke-in-the-eye shape if your midfield players are incapable of passing the ball to one another from five yards.

England should also have learned from the fitness debacle at the 2002 World Cup, where heat again was a hot topic. On several occasions before this tournament, Eriksson declared that, because of what happened in Japan, the utmost priority was to arrive with fit players. Yet he not only made the same mistake but repeated it with the same player, allowing David Beckham to play every minute of every game when form, let alone fitness, did not justify it.

Beckham admitted his lack of fitness after it was all over but it became so glaringly obvious as the tournament progressed that he should have been brought off long before he had the chance to miss that penalty against Portugal. The only conclusion must be that Eriksson, despite claiming last week that no player is untouchable, is unwilling to bring off a captain to whom he is so close.

The drama and the emotions of the penalty shoot-out allowed England to glean some of the sympathy vote, especially among the more cheerleader-style TV commentators. Ditto the defeat in added time against France, though neither verdict survives more leisurely and sober reflection.

John Terry's subjective view of the opening game is that "we played the best team in the world and played them off the park" which is in variance to both the statistics and the evidence of one's own eyes, as France swept forward for much of the match and received, in the wisdom of many, their just rewards.

Statistics do not always tell the true story but the fact that Portugal enjoyed 65 per cent of the possession accurately reflected their superiority. What the figures do not convey is that they utilised that possession to attack with fluency and imagination, while England used most of their 35 per cent hoofing the ball as far downfield as possible.

If England are ever able to look reality in the eye, they would have to concede that they might not have won a game in this tournament but for Wayne Rooney, not just because of his goals but because he was the player who made the tactics fit with his selfless running.

Sadly, he tempted the gods by defying his profession's usual superstitions by coming off against Croatia wearing Dario Samic's number 13 shirt. Injury inevitably followed.

Without him for 63 minutes against Portugal, England were shapeless. So what now for a team that supposedly contains our best young crop of players for years? Can they really end a 40-year wait for World Cup success in 2006, which will be the last opportunity for many of them?

Many of the players point to the youthfulness of the side, as though that was a virtue in itself, rather than raw material on which talent and experience can be moulded. Steven Gerrard, who came into the tournament with such a high reputation, needs some of the youth knocked out of him if he is to play with real discipline and authority at international level, which he has the ability to do. As one former international put it: "It was Hollywood everytime he got the ball."

Frank Lampard, too, needs to work on ball retention skills and better decision making if he is not to become another superb club footballer unable to rise above average at the highest level. As for Rooney, he merely needs to stay fit.

Eriksson, who is clearly popular with the players, must refine the long ball tactics which are guaranteed to tire his team, although their continuing second half siestas may have as much to do with the strange training regime of running and more running.

Above all, however, he must make it clear to Beckham that he needs to retake his vows as a serious footballer if he is to continue on the journey to success rather than be ditched at the next lay-by.

The road to nowhere? If England cannot absorb the lessons of another failure, they might as well drive into Germany in 2006 with the CD player blasting out AC/DC'S Highway To Hell.